ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Kyle Noonan is the CEO of FreeRange Concepts. FreeRange owns The Rustic, Mutts and many other restaurant concepts. He is a pioneer in the hospitality industry with a large social media following. FreeRange Concepts knows how to use its following to its advantage to bring in customers to experience their unique restaurant concepts. Noonan joins Tyler Kern and Bill Kasko, CEO, Frontline Source Group to talk about the history of his business partnership and running a successful restaurant experience.
FreeRange Concepts now has restaurants open in three major cities - Dallas, San Antonio and Houston, Texas. Noonan said they are staying away from Austin, Texas at the moment because of the huge competition there. Noonan gave some advice when growing a business, saying that it is important to have good consultants and people. Early on in the business, they used their budget to pay people who know what they are doing and worried about making money, later. Noonan said that they modeled their work after the military’s structure and way of management. Another piece of advice he gave was that it helps to have top-level talent to promote the business, adding not to be afraid to pay extra for that promotion.
Noonan talked about his business partner and how to cultivate a healthy relationship. He said that two partners have to have different skill sets and respect each other’s decisions. An issue the company constantly addresses is finding the right people to hire because of high turnover. The conversation turned to the fact that, at some point, this is just part of the industry. Noonan said to take time to write and rewrite the mission statement and let employees and customers know what it is.
